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'Dying Words' review, taken from The Guardian, 11/08/07, written by Keith Brooke.
With writers like Joe Hill and Conrad Williams making a big impression, horror is clearly back, but then to an extent it never really went away. Dying Words is Shaun Hutson's 29th horror/thriller novel, not to mention numerous forays into other genres under his own name and various pseudonyms. The protagonist of the book, DI David Birch, has a complicated personal history, eats takeaways when he remembers, he is married to the job and uses unconventional methods when he feels justice needs to be dispensed. On many levels Birch is a paint by numbers copper who gets the job done. And Dying Words is a novel that gets the job done. Pared-down prose in staccato chapters whisks the reader through a scary white-knuckle ride, and it's only when you pause for breath that you realise it's peopled by a selection from central casting who do silly things against sparsely described cardboard scenery. Sure, you could tear holes in the logic of the characters' actions, you could wish for artful prose and clever descriptions, but if you want pacy, explicit, edge-of-your-seat storytelling, Hutson is always a good bet. Great fun.